THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: INTERIM GOVERNMENT

THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: INTERIM GOVERNMENT; Iraqi Factions Seek to Take Over Security Duties

By PATRICK E. TYLER

Published: September 19, 2003

SALAHUDDIN, Iraq, Sept. 18—
Five Iraqi leaders devised a sweeping new security proposal today that would call for most American troops to withdraw to their bases and turn over day-to-day police duties to Iraqi militia forces working under a new interior ministry.

While the proposal still requires approval from Iraq's Governing Council and the American authorities, it represented the strongest action to date on the deteriorating security climate in Iraq by leaders of the former Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein.

Some of these leaders, who met privately here in this city in northeastern Iraq to create the proposal, said they were prompted to act out of deep frustrations over the continuing instability in the country.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party and the host of the meeting, said in an interview that United States forces were making serious mistakes by trying to become a ''front line'' occupation force. He said they needed to turn over this task quickly to Iraqi militia forces who could work with Iraqi civic and tribal leaders to draw up security arrangements tailored to each part of the country.

The proposal, which will be presented to American officials in the next few days, raised questions of how the disparate Iraqi militias would function together, if at all, and whether their return to the streets would foment a kind of warlordism in Iraq. The Iraqi leaders said, however, that their forces could be integrated under the control of a new interior ministry and monitored by Iraq's interim government and the United States military.

The militias, Mr. Barzani said, could provide a transitional force until tens of thousands of Iraqi police officers and a new Iraqi army were ready to assume the task.

Mr. Barzani said Iraqi leaders want to continue to work closely with the more than 140,000 allied forces in Iraq, but he indicated that the five former opposition leaders would recommend to the 25-member Governing Council that the United States military take a secondary and much reduced role.

''The biggest mistake the Americans have made is to confront the Iraqis face to face and to be in the front line of confrontation,'' Mr. Barzani said. ''But I think American forces should be withdrawn to bases nearby. They should not be policing and conducting patrols. They should hand over these duties to Iraqis.''

It was not immediately clear how the United States will respond to the proposal. But military authorities have said they would be receptive to a workable plan to speed up the transfer of security functions in the country to the Iraqis.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, who heads the United States Central Command, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that American military commanders were considering a plan to pull back from policing duties by next spring.

The commander of the allied forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told reporters in Baghdad today they ''would be willing to do that immediately'' if local security forces were prepared to take over.

The plan drawn up by the Iraqi opposition leaders would call for a more rapid pullback of allied forces and would bring into play Kurdish, Shiite and other militia forces that the American military commanders have either sought to disarm, disband, or, in the case of the Kurds, restrict to guard duties in the Kurdish homelands in northern Iraq.

The meeting here was unannounced and came as a surprise to some members of the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad.

No American military officials were present, but a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer in Iraq lunched with the five leaders at Mr. Barzani's guest house here. When a reporter was invited into the lunch by Mr. Barzani, the C.I.A. official and his aides departed.

The dramatic initiative by the core leaders of the former Iraqi opposition to Mr. Hussein follows a month of increasing violence and security setbacks for American forces that have created a perception that the American security plan for postwar Iraq is failing.

Today's meeting also reflected the growing determination on the part of the interim Iraqi government to assert itself politically by insisting on taking over more responsibility from the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer III.

''The Iraqi people understand the logic of liberation and they reject the logic of occupation,'' said Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and one of the participants in today's meeting. Mr. Chalabi is president of the Iraqi Governing Council this month under a rotation arrangement. ''The faster that sovereignty is vested in the Iraqis, the faster that security will be established in the country,'' he said.

Mr. Chalabi, who leaves for the United States this weekend, said the new security plan had been completed. It was expected that it would be presented to senior Bush administration officials in coming days.

''It would put the Iraqi militias under the ministry of interior and take control of security in agreement with the Americans with some sort of liaison so we can avoid incidents of friendly fire,'' he said, adding that the plan could be carried out this fall.